MAPS OF THEGODS

ISBN: 978-960-8411-28-9

© PETER CHRISS

PRINTED IN ELLAS BY PERITECHNON 2012

DTP: RALLOU KARTERIS

COVER: TOM PAPATOLIS

ILLUSTRATORS: ROBERT WANKA, IAN BEVERIDGE

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MAPS OF THEGODS

PETER CHRISS

PERITECHNON

ATHENS 2012

WHAT THIS BOOK DOES...

This book teaches us what happened in the past and what we should do in the future. Since this encyclopedic book intro-duces many different subjects ―architecture, art, astronomy,

geometry, engineering, medicine, and sports, to name only a few― it is ideal for parents who wish to discover what subjects their chil-dren are naturally inclined to and so, encourage them to learn more.

Yet it is not only boys and girls who need this book. Adults as well as children will learn about the origins and history of Western civilization. They will learn what their civilization once meant to the world.

And to themselves…

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The story 10The maps 49Bibliography 474

ONCE A YEAR

O nce a year, at Christmastime, the Gods in Heaven send Their no-

ble Titan, Prometheus, to that little planet called earth in order

to find the smallest, nastiest, grumpiest, most miserable, most melan-

choly old man there is down there and make him believe in goodness

again. Who can transform an old cynic into a hopeful believer? Who can

change a stubborn pessimist into an eternal optimist? Prometheus the

mighty Titan, that’s who.

But this year, the mighty Titan has been given an impossible task;

change the hard heart and stubborn mind of a pessimistic professor of

history. A professor who believes that life is hopeless and that the hu-

man race has no future. Can Prometheus the Titan perform this impos-

sible mission? Can he change the old man’s heart? And mind?

This story is all about the debate that takes place one night between

this giant optimist and that dying pessimist. What follows is the dialogue

between a cheerful Titan and a fatalistic professor of history. The Titan

is followed by a faithful crowd of hopeful children while the professor is

followed by a doubtful crowd of old skeptics and cynics. The professor

has maps that prove that the world is coming to an end but the Titan

has maps which prove the opposite. The duel between two minds, with

two very different kinds of maps, is about to begin . . .

CHARACTERS

PROMETHEUSThe Titan who once gave men the gift of fire and who is now

bringing the gift of maps and vision.

THE MIDNIGHT PROFESSORJulian Wright, a melancholy old scholar wanders through the

streets alone at night with all the maps of history; maps of the world which show that the human race has no future, that this planet is doomed, that this is the end. But who dares listen to him?

MR. GEORGE SORROWSA miserable, miserly, sly, slimy, old financier and money lender

who profits from the bankruptcy of nations and the poverty of others. And of all the nations in the world, the one he wants to impoverish the most is the one he fears the most; the cradle of Western civiliza-tion, the truly forgotten Holy Land, the birthplace of democracy. That small country which was once called Ellas but is now called Greece.

PREACHER SCARAMOSOA gloomy old preacher who talks far more about Satan and Hell

than he ever does about God or Heaven.

MRS. WHISKACUDA snickering, drunken, illiterate, one-eyed old woman with double

vision and snow-melting, alcohol breath.

MISS CREMATORISA jealous spinster and poison-pen gossip columnist.

CROWD OF OLD SKEPTICS AND CYNICS KNOWN AS THE GRUMPIES.

CROWD OF HOPEFUL CHILDREN WHO ARE CALLED THE SUNNIES.

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“Prometheus is coming! Prometheus is coming!”The excited cry echoed throughout the empty, snow-covered

streets of the sparkling, ice-sculptured metropolis. It was the night of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Of course, most people were locked inside their centrally heated apartment buildings. Yet while millions of metropolitans were slumbering and snoring inside their buildings, the coming of Prometheus was being announced and talked about by those few who had awoken and now walked the streets. Millions of others only believed what they saw on television. Millions of citizens had become prisoners of their own buildings, prisoners of that Global Computer which controlled their heating and locked the building doors at certain hours and ran their lives. Those strangely modern prisoners were also suffering from a strangely modern disease. Mass amnesia, mass apathy. No one seemed to know what had happened in the past and no one wanted to know. No one cared.

Only one man knew. Only one man cared.That sad and lonely professor of history who walked the mid-

night streets. It was his job to remember what everyone else had forgotten. His name was Julian Wright and he was now forever haunted by the visions, by the maps, by the ghosts and regrets of too many lifetimes, too many ages; Atlantis, lost continents, sunken cities, assassinated presidents, betrayed armies, unknown soldiers. The price one pays for knowing too much history. Even his smile was melancholy while his blue-green eyes were like the color of those ancient seas where pagan gods had once drowned. So when he heard that a friendly giant with an ancient name had come to visit this modern city, of course he immediately went to see him.

He was not the only one.There were other sleepless, restless people who were curious

to see the maps that the Titan brought. Yet there were two kinds of little people who wanted to look at those giant maps and for two very different reasons. There were the curious children who

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had many questions. And then there were the wrinkled, gnarled, grumpy old people who had many opinions and objections.

Questions. It was only natural that these curious children who had run away from the orphanage building and who now free-ly wandered the wide, white streets of the echoing city, carried a whole kingdom of questions with them wherever they went. Who, what, when, why, and wherefore. These were the fatherless boys and motherless girls who were curious about the past. So now they were all running across the snowy city, across the snow-covered parks and hills to meet that giant and look at his giant maps. Thomas and Alice, Stephen and Nancy, Raymond and Zoe, Tadzio and Venetia, Jimmy and Mary, Pervene and Vanessa, and countless others.

Opinions. The old people didn’t have anymore questions and they didn’t want to learn anything new. They only wanted to glance at the Titan’s maps long enough to prove that they knew it all already. Since these old people believed that they were the greatest generation that ever lived, they also had to believe that their modern civilization was superior to any ancient world.

The children, the old people, the lonely professor all waited together amid the softly falling snow while the giant approached. His footsteps grew louder, hearts beat faster. He finally appeared. Towering and majestic, Prometheus the Titan was even more handsome and breathtaking than anyone could have imagined. A luxurious green robe lined with soft, warm, white furs hung over him while strapped over his right shoulder was the large, wooden, cylindrical container containing all his massive maps. His head was crowned with a holly wreath of red berries, green leaves, and glittering icicles. His curly, fiery hair was now moonlit, his large blue eyes were starlit, and his lips were warmed into a Christmas smile by some inner spring of summer goodness.

“Did you bring the maps?” grumbled the crowd of old folks as they looked up at him. They resented having to look up at any-one.

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The Titan nodded his giant head as he looked down at them.“Well get on with it!” “We don’t have all night, you know. Show us a map of our city.” “But I only have very big maps of the world”, explained the

Titan. “Well, so what?” replied all the little old men and women who

squinted up at him through their glasses. “We’re not little people, you know. Show us the biggest map you got. We can handle it.”

So the Titan reached into his wooden container and started to unroll a map of… the universe. Designed long ago by an Un-known Hand, it was more than a map. It was a diagram of the en-tire cosmos; a scattered network of lines, circles, triangles, Ellenic letters, solar systems, roads and bridges of living light.

“You are here,” explained the Titan as he pointed at a tiny spot on his giant map, “but you would be here if―”

“No!” interrupted the crowd of nearsighted, short-tempered, small old men and women. “We don’t need a map of the whole blasted universe!”

“We just need a map of our world. A local map.”So the Titan reached into his wooden container and took out

another dusty, fragile, papyrus scroll which he started to unroll in the winter moonlight. It was a map of the earth orbiting around the sun. A heliocentric map. It was one of those “before and after” diagrams which showed the earth orbiting in the earlier, upright position as well as in the later, fallen state.

“What’s this?” demanded the suspicious old men.“It is,” the Titan began to explain, “a map of the earth during

the Golden Age when…” The Grumpies, however, wouldn’t let the Titan finish. It was

only the Sunnies, the curious boys and girls gathered around the Titan on the moonlit side of the street, who really wanted to learn. There was young Stephanos who wanted to grow up to become a great scientist and little Alice who wanted to learn everything big and important. But the Grumpies on the dark, shadowy side of the

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street wouldn’t let the Sunnies learn anything with their constant grumbling and complaining.

“There is no Golden Age,” grumbled one of the frowning Grumpies, “never was.”

“Can’t be any Golden Age without gold,” snickered Mr. Sor-rows, the old money lender.

“Can’t be any Golden Age of men,” snickered Miss Crematoris, the old feminist.

“All those so-called Golden Ages,” concluded the old profes-sor, “are just outdated, romantic myths.”

“The world must end,” muttered the preacher, Justino Scaramoso. “Why must the world end?” wondered the Sunnies, asking their

first question of the night.“Because it is the will of God,” instantly replied the old priest

from the dark street.“But what kind of God is this,” wondered the moonlit children,

“who wants the world to end?” “You just don’t understand theology,” explained Preacher

Scaramoso.“Do you understand theology?” wondered little Thomas.“Of course,” immediately replied Justino Scaramoso. “But I can’t

explain it to you because you’re only children. Professor Julian Wright, however, will bring his maps and show you exactly how and when this world is going to an end.”

“Oh!”“The professor will prove,” continued the old preacher with

satisfaction from the dark side of the street, “why this world must soon end. Everything in life ends in smoke and dust.”

“Just look at us,” added the ugly, old, gossip columnist. “This is how you’ll end up looking when your time comes.”

“It’s simply a question of time and money,” explained the old money lender.

“Time,” repeated the old professor of history as he shook his snow-white head in the dark night. “There is never enough time

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but there’s always too much history. And such is the sad nature of fate that even the mightiest empires crumble and even the bright-est civilizations darken.”

“No,” countered the giant.“No?” grumbled the Grumpies. “What do you mean no?”“No,” repeated the Titan, “there are some ancient things which

are still in existence today.”“Such as?” wondered the old historian. “Name me something

ancient still around today.”“I can name you three things,” replied the Titan. “Ellas, America,

democracy.”“What’s Ellas?” asked one of the old men.“What’s America?” asked another.“What’s democracy?” asked a third.Prometheus the Titan silently answered the first question by

unrolling his next papyrus scroll; it was a map of the Mediter-ranean world as seen through an ancient curtain of clouds. Al-though it was late in the evening, the countries on this map were still lighted by a prehistoric sun many thousands of years old. The golden light of this scroll illuminated not only the rosy faces of the curious children who drew near but the wrinkled faces of the old as well. One such old person was the professor of history.

“This is Ellas,” patiently explained the giant. “The cradle of Western civilization, the holy land of European culture, and the source of all your post-cataclysmic utopias.”

“Utopias?” grumbled the Grumpies. “There’s nothing wrong with our modern world,” grumbled

one of the frowning old men, always suspicious of new words.“There’s certainly nothing wrong with our religious system,”

hissed the old preacher from beneath a dead, leafless tree.“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with our financial system,”

added the old money lender.“And there’s nothing wrong with our information system,”

snickered the old gossip columnist.

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“It will take more than just a few of your maps, Titan,” con-cluded the Midnight Professor as he stood with all the other cyn-ics on the dark side of the street, “to change our minds and make us believe in a better world.”

“A very cynical view of history, mortal,” reflected the Titan.“Of course I’ve got a cynical view of human history!” declared

the Midnight Professor. “And I didn’t become a cynic overnight, you know. It took many years of serious studying and many uni-versity degrees before I finally became a cynic. I worked hard to earn my cynicism.”

“Hurrah! Bravo!” shouted the grumpy old men who broke out into spontaneous applause. “We’re proud of you, professor! We don’t need the Titan’s outdated maps. We don’t even like them.”

“They’re too big!”“They’re too colorful.”“They’re too romantic.”“What are we doing out here anyways?” grumbled one of the

Grumpies. “We should be back in our apartments playing video games.”

“We miss our ninetendo games.” added another.“Why,” whispered the children politely, not wishing to awaken

the adults in this slumbering, television-dominated city, “don’t you want to learn?”

“Why should we waste our time studying your outdated maps,” replied Mr. Sorrows, the financier, “when we can learn everything we need from the faster and more efficient Global Computer?”

“Global Computer?” wondered the Titan who was always dis-covering something new each time he came down to visit earth.

“Since I am one of those who helped finance its construction and maintenance,” explained Mr. Sorrows, “I will now tell you. When we started to demolish the libraries of the world in order to maximize our space on this little, overcrowded planet, we fed in all the information from the books just before they were burnt into the electronic memory cells of the Global Computer.”

“I see,” sighed the disappointed Titan.